VT's Blog
The Blog of Viral Tarpara A Smart 27 year old's thoughts on Windows, Cloud Computing, Collaboration, and Productivity
Last Day at Microsoft
Hello Everyone, With great reluctance, I am leaving Microsoft and will no longer be maintaining this...
Date: 04/29/2010
Why One Mac User Hates Google Docs
Why I Don't Use Google Docs By Rob Griffiths, Macworld.com When you need to collaborate with others...
Date: 03/31/2010
A Review of Silverlight and Windows Phone 7 from MIX 2010
Underbelly has a great chronological timeline of the what was announced at MIX regarding Xbox Live,...
Date: 03/15/2010
Explaining the Cloud
I did an academic presentation at Bucks University hosted by the Istitution of Engineering and...
Date: 03/11/2010
Buy Office 2007 Now and Upgrade to 2010 for Free!
Microsoft has kicked in its technology guarantee for customers who are waiting to upgrade to Office...
Date: 03/08/2010
Microsoft Releases Visual Studio 2010 RC!
Q: What was announced today? A: Today, Microsoft announced a Release Candidate (RC) for Visual...
Date: 02/08/2010
Weekender: Facebook, Silverlight, CSS, Guy Kawasaki
CSS Zen Garden Illustrates the Power of CSS This is a great site that shows real-time CSS design...
Date: 02/05/2010
Microsoft IT Talks about Snow and Unified Communications
Snow Problem What a winter! The long range weather forecasters got it wrong, traffic in south...
Date: 02/04/2010
Microsoft in Education – A Presentation by Steve Beswick
I managed to finally import, edit, and clean up the video from The SharePoint EDU Conference that...
Date: 02/02/2010
PHP SQL Server Driver for All You Communists
I’ve been meeting a lot of open-source devs lately and most tend to be genuinely surprised about the...
Date: 01/30/2010
Just Watched Obama Get Grilled by House Republicans QA for 90 minutes. WOW!
Sorry if politics isn’t your thing (it should be cause tech revolves around policy), and I am not...
Date: 01/29/2010
Apple iPad – A Microsoft Allegory (Part 1)
Kudos to Apple on a fantastic product launch! I give props where it is due and they really did...
Date: 01/28/2010
Microsoft Releases Haitian Creole Translator for Haiti Aid Workers
Its been amazing to see the world community mobilize against the disaster in Haiti. There...
Date: 01/28/2010
Microsoft Can Do Sexy Too…Pshh iPad
If you’ve heard or used our Arc Mouse, we now have a really cool companion item to go with it. ...
Date: 01/27/2010
Understanding Expression Blend Sketchflow in 5 Minutes
Taking the audio from the original recording presented during Oxford Geek Night, I created a video...
Date: 01/26/2010
February Live Webcasts from Microsoft
TechNet Webcast: Network Considerations for Deploying Communications Server 2007 R2 (Level 300)...
Date: 01/25/2010
Mr. Ballmer, Would You Sign My Mac?
Sorry, this was too funny not to post! Well played Mr. Ballmer…well played. Just out of...
Date: 01/22/2010
Deepfat Rationalizes the Ribbon UI in Microsoft Office
My colleague Andrew Fryer (@deepfat) was annoyed at BETT 2010 conference by the number of older...
Date: 01/22/2010
Office 2010 Tips – Co-authoring Tools and Web Apps
Cutting in line is encouraged With powerful co-authoring tools at your command, you never have to...
Date: 01/20/2010
Office 2010 Tips – Print, Share, and Communicate Easier with Office Backstage View
Use the Backstage view for quick access to the essentials The new Microsoft Office Backstage view...
Date: 01/19/2010
Office 2010 Tips – View, Edit, and Collaborate Anytime Anywhere with SharePoint Workspace
Pilot SharePoint Workspace! Ever open your computer, ready to work from home, and realize you forgot...
Date: 01/18/2010
Microsoft Office Web Apps License Information
Ars Technica has a done some reading in the in the “product use rights” document pertaining to...
Date: 01/11/2010
Exchange Server Deep Dive Content
Exchange Server in Depth: Master Concepts and Optimize Your Server Environment The latest release of...
Date: 12/03/2009
Windows Azure Interop with Ruby on Rails!
I presented at London Geek Night a few days ago about the contributions that Microsoft made to the...
Date: 12/02/2009
Sky Player on Windows 7 Media Center
Sky Player, Sky’s online TV service launches on Windows 7 creating a new and innovative way for...
Date: 12/02/2009
TechNet December WebCasts and Videos
TechNet Webcast: Microsoft Virtualization Best Practices for SharePoint (Level 200) Wednesday,...
Date: 12/02/2009
What’s New In SharePoint 2010
There is a lot of noise in the SharePoint world post SharePoint Conference 2009 and PDC. I’m...
Date: 11/30/2009
Pairing Jawbone Headset with Windows 7
Doing a search on this topic, it seems that many of you out there are frustrated by the fact that a...
Date: 11/23/2009
Discover the Future of Visual Data Mining with Microsoft Pivot
The world has too much information. If you query any search engine for any topic, you will...
Date: 11/21/2009
Chrome OS Engineering vs. Windows 7 Engineering
Okay everyone, the moment has finally arrived! Google just announced… A Big Pile of Nothing It...
Date: 11/20/2009
Classrooms with “Mini” Mainframe Using Multipoint Server
The idea of using a single machine with multiple simultaneous users is not a new concept. ...
Date: 11/17/2009
SharePoint VCX Conference Videos Posted! (FREE)
Attend at Your Convenience! If you weren't able to make the SharePoint Live Virtual Conference &...
Date: 11/13/2009
A Partner’s Objection Handling Guide for Exchange 2010
In my previous post, you read about the challenges and solutions that Exchange 2003 customers value....
Date: 11/11/2009
Pitching Exchange 2010 to Exchange 2003 Organizations
With the launch of Exchange 2010, I thought it would be a good idea to how the product team feels...
Date: 11/10/2009
Try Out Office Web Apps, Edit Office Docs with SkyDrive
I must admit, I don’t use SkyDrive as often I’d like simply because Microsoft is really good at...
Date: 11/05/2009
Hosted Microsoft Services on the Cheap? Yes Please!
There has never been a better time for hosted business software! Software available today...
Date: 11/04/2009
Office 2010 Tips – Make Quality Diagrams with Visio
Get a backstage pass to vibrant diagrams Microsoft Visio 2010 gives you fast and easy access to a...
Date: 10/23/2009
SharePoint Conference Day 2 – IT Pro Overview of 2010
While I’m really busy tweeting live at this conference, I read a great overview for IT Pros who are...
Date: 10/20/2009
SharePoint Conference Day 1 – Keynote Bullet Points
What a conference! 7400+ Attendees 150+ Breakout sessions, Hands On Labs, and Chalk Talks 7.5 Miles...
Date: 10/19/2009
Office 2010 Tips – Language Translation on Steroids laughs at Google Docs
What language barrier? Find improved tools for translation in Word Word 2010 has great tools for...
Date: 10/14/2009
Office 2010 Tips – Visio “Quick Shapes” Remembers What You Use the Most
A home for your favorite shapes and functions! Microsoft Visio 2010 gives you fast and easy access...
Date: 10/13/2009
Orange Broadband Router SE572 Fix – Block UDP 500
I just got a Orange Broadband since they have a deal for Microsoft UK employees. They...
Date: 10/12/2009
Super Fast Technical Overview of BPOS – Exchange, SharePoint, and OCS Online
Bpos Architectural Consideration Architectural Forum View more presentations from ukdpe. One of our...
Date: 10/09/2009
Microsoft is Having a Big Patch Tuesday – Webcast Announced
For October we are releasing 13 bulletins (eight critical and five important), addressing 34...
Date: 10/09/2009
Office 2010 Tips – Easily Edit Video in PowerPoint 2010
Break out the director’s chair Embed and edit video files directly in PowerPoint 2010. Easily...
Date: 10/09/2009
Microsoft OCS Improves Interoperability – XMPP Supported and AOL is Free
Starting October 1, 2009,, a PIC License will no longer be required for federation with American...
Date: 10/02/2009
Microsoft Gets Top Marks in SAML 2.0 Interoperability
Microsoft security experts have never really been fans of SAML, a markup language, that is crucial...
Date: 10/01/2009